Friday, September 12, 2014

Great Collection of News and Comment Today

Update

My friend and brother Marine, John Payne was in town with
his brother, Dennis, also a Marine vet. As regular readers know, John got a
lung five days before I did, also for pulmonary fibrosis. He was here for a
three-month checkup, and is doing great. Above we are at dinner at the Beach
House Restaurant in McFarland, Dennis on the left.

Friday 9/12 it was cold, rainy and about 46 degrees here.
More like November than September. It was 90 when John left Louisiana. He asked when it was supposed to
warm up again. I said, "May." I am not looking forward to this
winter, but glad to still be here for it.

My bride and I are listening to this fascinating short
history on CD in the car. Very interesting facts. Folks in 1000 were more
advanced than we credit. A lot of the things developed then are still strong
influences on our world. The book does dwell a bit on the disastrous reign of
my ancestor, Ethelred II, the Unready. The epithet “unready” is derived
from unraed, meaning “bad counsel” or “no counsel,” a puns on his
name, which means “noble counsel.” Ah, well, we can't all have Robert the Bruce
in the linage. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/193946/Ethelred-II

Excerpt: Over one-third of Likely U.S. Voters remain unaware
which political party controls the House of Representatives and which has a
majority in the Senate - less than two months before an election that may put
one party in charge of both. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey
finds that only 63% are aware that Republicans have majority control of the
House. An identical number (63%) know that Democrats run the Senate. (And we
wonder why we are in the shape we are. These are the low-info loot-the-future
voters when they vote. $20 says my 39-year-old step-daughter is among them. Two
month after we invaded Iraq,
she walked in and asked, "Are we at war?" Doesn't follow news on TV,
read a paper, or use the Internet except for Facebook. ~Bob)

Excerpt: A public school teacher in Washington who instructed sixth-graders
to compare former President George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler has learned her own
lesson, according to district officials, but critics wonder why she still has a
job. D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Kayak Henderson responded to the
controversy late Wednesday on Twitter, saying no curriculum intended
to make the comparison “in any way” and that the district and unidentified
teacher are “deeply apologetic” about the matter. Henderson said the teacher has been
ordered to apologize to the class. ("They have to be carefully
taught".....Barb)

Excerpt: There are more companies than people in the small US state of Delaware,
its population of under one million nestled on the Atlantic coast just south of
New Jersey. The
reason is clear: the state offers companies low taxes, an efficient,
pro-business legal environment, and it allows anyone to set up a company
anonymously, registering a shell that hides who really controls it and controls
the money within it. That has now put Delaware,
and other states that permit shell companies, in the sights of the US authorities, after they have campaigned
against international tax havens like Switzerland to fight tax dodging
and money laundering. (Too bad Delaware
doesn't have any high ranking US government officials to go to bat for it.
~Bob)

Excerpt: Democrats often blame gerrymandering, but that’s
not the whole story. More than ever, the kind of place where Americans live —
metropolitan or rural — dictates their political views. The country is
increasingly divided between liberal cities and close-in suburbs, on one hand,
and conservative exurbs and rural areas, on the other. Even in red states, the
counties containing the large cities — like Dallas,
Atlanta, St. Louis
and Birmingham
— lean Democratic.

Excerpt: What if a key part of the problem is that many of
these voters simply don’t know that Democratic control of the Senate is at
stake in this fall’s elections? That’s one of the conclusions veteran Dem
pollster CelindaLake reached after conducting new focus
groups and polling for the liberal group MoveOn. Lake conducted two focus groups of people from Detroitand its
suburbs. (Detroit?
With what the Democrats have made of the cities' school systems, lucky if they
know what a senate is. This highlights the fact that Democrats are highly
dependent on low information voters. ~Bob)

Theirs But To Do and
Die: Dien Bien Phu and the twilight of the
warrior. By Robert Messenger

Excerpt: The Battle of Dien Bien Phu passed from history
into legend almost the moment it ended in the early hours of May 8, 1954.
Popular conception is that colonialism’s days in Indochina
were numbered, and there was nothing French soldiers could have done to arrest
the forces of history. The Indochina War that ebbed and flowed after 1945 tends
to be presented as either a small episode in the story of postwar Asian
nationalism or the opening act of a long war that ended in 1976. These are
handy tales for textbook writers and newspaper columnists, but the facts don’t
support them. Even a cursory study shows that Dien Bien
Phu was a viable military gamble and one that the French came
close to winning. Indochina might just as easily have been another Malaya as a
precursor to U.S. failure in
Vietnam.
As so often when political issues are intertwined with military, hindsight is
blind. (Wow, what a fascinating discussion of the French experience in Viet Nam and elsewhere and the US experience in Viet Nam and elsewhere. --Del)

Excerpt: One of the reasons that I worked for many years as
an ill-remunerated doctor in a prison, and used earlier in my life to visit
countries torn by civil war, is that extreme situations help to clarify what is
important in life. I never arrived in the prison but I wondered how I would
react to incarceration, whether I would be a stoic and retreat into myself or
be someone who kicked against the traces and made trouble for the authorities
just to assert my own continuing humanity. (A very nice explanation of the most
unpleasant human truths... should be read by everyone, but most especially by
those who think every conflict can be solved by good communication and good
will. --Del)

Excerpt: On the evening of January 11, 1996, while Mitt
Romney was in the final years of his run as the head of Bain Capital, Barack
Obama formally joined the New Party, which was deeply hostile to the mainstream
of the Democratic party and even to American capitalism. In 2008, candidate
Obama deceived the American public about his potentially damaging tie to this
third party. The issue remains as fresh as today’s headlines, as Romney argues
that Obama is trying to move the United States toward European-style
social democracy, which was precisely the New Party’s goal

Obama losing the confidence of key parts of the coalition
that elected him. By Karen Tumulty

Excerpt: Both Cole and Richardson were surveyed in the
latest Washington Post-ABC News poll and represent one of its most
striking findings: the degree to which the president’s approval has slipped
among key parts of the Obama coalition — the women, youth and Latino voters
most responsible for putting him into office.

Moore's a racist? Who
knew? Michael Moore slams Obama: He was the first black American that
got elected president, and that's it': Michael Moore slams Obama's legacy for
leaving Detroit
in the lurch

Excerpt: Angry left-wing filmmaker trashed Democratic
president in Toronto as 'a big disappointment' Said his ghost-town home city of
Detroit, Michigan should be better off – and would be, if it were in Iraq or
Syria. Insisted the only historic accomplishment Obama will be remembered for
is breaking the presidential color barrier 'Not a bad accomplishment, but
that's it' (Moore
has given up on Obama, which is interesting, he was one of the guys who thought
Obama was The One. --Del)

Race Card News

93% of Democratic
Senate or Governor Candidates Are White: Not So Diverse. By Dan McLaughlin

Excerpt: ...while Republicans will be running two Hispanic
Governors for re-election, Democrats will not have a single Hispanic candidate
heading a statewide ticket. ... In the 71 races they are contesting, 66 of the
71 candidates the Democrats are running (93%) are white, 56 of the 71 (79%) are
male, and 53 of 71 (75%) are white males. That could spell trouble for the
Democrats’ hopes of turning out a voting base that is disproportionately
non-white and female. For all the Democrats’ rhetoric about race, they are
running fewer non-white candidates than the Republicans are, and fewer in races
they are seriously contesting. (I'm sure the race-sensitive MSM will be all
over this. Ha! ~Bob)

Excerpt: Two questions will determine whether radical
Islamic terrorists will attack us once more: one, are the post-9/11
anti-terrorism protocols that have so far stopped major terrorist attacks still
viable and effective, and, two, is Al-Qaeda or an analogous Islamic terrorist
organization now still as capable as were Osama bin Laden’s henchmen in 2001?

Unfortunately, the answers to those two questions should
raise great concern. Take the current status of the so-called war on terror in
all of its manifestations.

Excerpt: This president is still walking around with an
oversized sense of his own popularity, political capital, and public trust. He
still thinks that if he says, "We will do X," people will believe
him. He's capable of giving a good speech — well, reading from a teleprompter
with the right tone, facial expressions, and mannerisms — but very few people,
at home or abroad, still expect dramatic action to follow dramatic words. The
Obama pattern is clear: big promise, lousy results. Too many lines instantly
pop into the minds of viewers. Red line. "If you like your plan, you
can keep your plan." "We're going to arm the moderate Syrian
rebels." "New tone." "Assad must go." Just because
Obama says it doesn't mean it's going to happen. (Today's Morning Jolt is excellent, but I have no link and can't include the
whole thing. Worth subscribing to--it's free. ~Bob)

Excerpt: But at a basic level, the speech lacked clarity of
intent. President Obama began by listing his assumed counterterrorism
successes. This had a raw domestic political motivation that was unbefitting of
the moment. It distracted rather than reinforced his message. President Obama’s
assertion that he had removed “Syria’s
declared [note: declared] chemical weapons so they cannot pose a threat to the
Syrian people — or the world — again” was especially problematic. That WMD
deal is a disgrace that shames America.

Excerpt: In a televised
address on how to address the Islamic State this evening, President
Barack Obama declared the organization variously known as ISIS or ISIL to be
“not Islamic.” In making this preposterous claim, Obama joins his two immediate
predecessors in pronouncing on what is not Islamic.

Excerpt: The next section began to float toward
hyperbole. The president spoke of a “comprehensive counterterror
strategy.” He gave Yemen and
Somalia
as examples of the validity of this methodology. ... The final words were an
attempt to convince the listeners that his leadership has been
successful. That “case” is weak. Now the nation will wait to see if
this works.

Excerpt: An article in yesterday's New York
Times titled "US
Pins Hope on Syrian Rebels with Loyalties All Over the Map" highlights
the fact that President Obama's recently declared strategy against the Islamic
State depends on empowering Syrian rebels to take control once the Islamic
State is driven out. This plan leaves the US "dependent on a diverse
group riven by infighting, with no shared leadership and with hard-line
Islamists as its most effective fighters," the article observes, and
proceeds to elaborate on the difficulties of working with the various groups
and even knowing what their allegiances are. ... The only problem with this
example of a possible US
ally in the fight in Syria
is that Maarouf has already stated that he has no problem with al Qaeda's
Syrian branch, the Al Nusrah Front, and has admitted to sharing weapons with
it. (Okay, here I go again: THERE ARE NO GOOD GUYS IN SYRIA. The weapons we
give them will be eventually used to kill Americans, Israelis and other
westerners. ~Bob)

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.)
said Thursday that Congress will pass legislation authorizing the
training and equipping of moderate Syrian rebels by the end of next week. The
authorization will include the $500 million requested by President Obama for
the task, but Democratic leaders say it is too early to project how much the
open-ended military engagement will cost. “The proposal that the president has
given to the American people requires immediate congressional action in
granting the administration the authority to equip and train Syrian rebels
under Title X to fight ISIS,” Reid said.
(There are over 31,000 followers in ISIS now.
The regime wants to continue to arm them using America's $$. What is a
"moderate Syrian Islamist"? Intelligence reports on the net and other
reports indicate they state they are such, get the material, and swear
allegiance to ISIS. Kurds have captured
weapons from ISIS soldiers that say "Made in USA." Send more? And Reid is
banging his fist saying that the almighty OZ has declared we do it? Maybe we
are sheeple. Send them $500 million more? Call your representatives so they
know how the people they represent feel. Or go play golf and wait for someone
wrapped in black to play soccer with your head. --Barb)

Excerpt: House Speaker John Boehner yesterday reassured
Americans that Syrian rebels — who could be the recipients of $500 million
in U.S.
aid – have been “well-vetted” by intelligence officials. A former top
Pentagon official, however, urged that congressional leaders keep “eyes wide
open” and not rush toward unintended results.

In his speech to the nation on ISIL Wednesday, Barack
Obama declared, "[W]e will conduct a systematic campaign of airstrikes
against these terrorists. ... [W]e will hunt down terrorists who threaten our
country, wherever they are. That means I will not hesitate to take action
against ISIL in Syria, as
well as Iraq."
He claimed to be assembling a "broad coalition" in support of his
mission so as to not, as he has previously put it, "go it alone" like
George W. Bush in Iraq.
Bush went with support from 37 countries; Obama has fewer than 10. And one of
them is not Turkey,
which announced Thursday it would not permit U.S. aircraft
to conduct airstrikes from its air bases. That limits our options to carriers
in the region or other NATO bases further away. Oh, and Great Britain and
Germany also won't be helping with airstrikes. Behold, the results of
"leading from behind."

Secretary of State John Kerry
insisted Thursday that we are not at war with ISIL -- at least not
just yet. "What we are doing," he said, "is engaging in a very
significant counter-terrorism operation.” Just to reiterate the point, he said,
"If somebody wants to think about it as being a war with ISIL they can do
so, but the fact is it's a major counter-terrorism operation." We're glad
he cleared that up. It reminds us of Kerry's comments just over one year ago,
when he was pumping up action against Syria's Bashar al-Assad. He
promised we would counter Assad "without engaging in troops on the ground,
or any other prolonged kind of effort, in a very limited, very targeted, very
short-term effort,” and that any action would be an “unbelievably small, limited
kind of effort.” The administration sure is twisting itself into knots to
assure its hard-left base that Barack Obama is not George W. Bush. Kerry's
remarks would be funny if they weren't so disgraceful.

Excerpt: In his Islamic State speech, President Obama said
many of the right things. Most importantly, he finally got the mission right:
Degrade and destroy the enemy. This alone will probably get him a bump in the
polls, which have dropped to historic lows. But his strategic problem remains:
the disconnect between (proclaimed) ends and means.

Five things that
could go horribly wrong with Obama's action in Iraq. By Byron York

Excerpt: If there's one thing America's misadventure
in Iraq from 2003 to 2011 taught everyone, it is that things can go
terribly wrong when the U.S. intervenes in a foreign environment with deep
sectarian divisions, an ineffectual government, armed factions, and the general
complexities of the Middle
East.

Worth Reading: Countering
Islamic State will be hard in Iraq
and harder in Syria,
officials say

Excerpt: In Iraq,
dissolved elements of the army will have to regroup and fight with conviction.
Political leaders will have to reach compromises on the allocation of power and
money in ways that have eluded them for years. Disenfranchised Sunni tribesmen
will have to muster the will to join the government’s battle. European and Arab
allies will have to hang together, Washington
will have to tolerate the resurgence of Iranian-backed Shiite militias it once
fought, and U.S.
commanders will have to orchestrate an air war without ground-level guidance
from American combat forces. “Harder than anything we’ve tried to do thus far
in Iraq or Afghanistan” is how one U.S. general
involved in war planning described the challenges ahead on one side of the
border that splits the so-called Islamic State.

Brother of Beheaded American Journalist James Foley: State
Department Threatened Us. By Katie
Pavlich

Excerpt: Further in reaction to a question posed by Kelly about
whether the Obama administration did everything it could to bring James Foley
home, especially after the Bowe Bergdahl swap and comments by Obama saying
Americans leave no man behind, Michael Foley said his family is
"appalled" by the situation. Foley also talked about how he was
threatened directly by the State Department and said that when the family tried
to get information from the U.S.
government or from other allies, they were stonewalled.

Islamic State can’t be beaten without boots on the ground.
By Con Coughlin

Excerpt: If Barack Obama believes he’s come up with a
strategy to defeat Islamist militants in Syria
and Iraq,
he should think again. Far from devising a plan to crush the dangerous
fanatics, all he has done is to provide what is potentially a recipe for
disaster. (Racist UK Telegraph dares to question Obama's strategy. --George)

Excerpt: A few centuries later his fellow Englishman,
Winston Churchill, quipped, “The United States invariably does the right thing,
after having exhausted every other alternative.”

It’s not true of the United
States, but it is true of Barack Obama who, having
exhausted every alternative that involved appeasement or pretending that ISIS wasn’t a threat, has decided to do the right thing.

Excerpt: Chlorine gas was used in attacks in northern Syria this
year, says the international body seeking to implement global laws banning
chemical weapons. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
(OPCW) said it had found "compelling confirmation" of the use of
chlorine, in pure or mixed form. (This can't be true. Obama just bragged about
his success in getting Assad to give up chemical weapons. He didn't mention
that was thanks to Putin putting together a deal that let Assad stay in power,
despite Obama's "Assad must go" statement. ~Bob)

Excerpt: A prophetic warning from then-President George W.
Bush before he left office about what would happen if the U.S. withdrew troops from Iraq too
soon is getting new attention in light of the Islamic State’s gains, as each of
his predictions appears to be coming true. Bush,
as discussed on "The Kelly File," made the remarks in the
White House briefing room on July 12, 2007, as he argued against those who
sought an immediate troop withdrawal. “To begin withdrawing before our
commanders tell us we are ready would be dangerous for Iraq, for the region and for the United States,”
Bush cautioned.

I am a 14-year-old
Yazidi girl given as a gift to an ISIS
commander. Here’s how I escaped. They killed my brother and tried to make me a
concubine. I found a meat cleaver and broke out. By Mohammed A. Salih

Excerpt: The militants divided us by gender and age: One for
young and capable men, another for girls and young women, and a third for older
men and women. The jihadists stole cash and jewelry from this last group,
and left them alone at the oasis. Then they placed the girls and women in
trucks. As they drove us away, we heard gunshots. Later we learned that they
were killing the young men, including my 19-year old brother, who had married
just six months ago.

Isis recruitment moves from online networks to
British mosques. Growing evidence that Britain is a specific target for jihadis
looking to exploit fundamentalist Islam

Excerpt: Networks of radicals are re-emerging in British
mosques and elsewhere to encourage and facilitate Muslims wanting to travel
to Syria and Iraq to fight for Islamic State (Isis).
Until now most fighters from Britain
who are known to have travelled to Syria
have been persuaded and helped via online networks where extremists provide
advice on crossing the Turkish border and linking up with Isis
fighters. (Well I'm sure the moderates in these mosques are loudly speaking out
against this. Those with a death wish, anyway. Moderate Muslims are as
irrelevant as moderate Germans in 1938. ~Bob)

Jihadi DOCTOR stands
with severed head in her hand as kids look on in horror. A BRITISH doctor and
suspected jihadi holds aloft a severed head while two children look on in
horror.

Excerpt: The sickening snap is posted on Mujahidah Bint
Usama's Twitter page and shows her wearing a white lab coat, veil and holding
her arm outstretched, with what appears to be a decapitated head. The
photo is captioned "Dream Job... A Terrorist Doc" which she has added
a smiley face song and two hearts to. (Obviously joined the Jihad because of
poverty, privation and racism which kept her from getting ahead! ~Bob)

Excerpt: In 2012, the Obama administration was on the verge
of bombing the forces of Syrian president Bashar Assad. For a few weeks, he was
public enemy No. 1 because he had used chemical weapons on his own people and
because he was responsible for many of the deaths in the Syrian civil war, with
a casualty count that is now close to 200,000. After Obama’s red lines turned
pink, we forgot about Syria.
Then the Islamic State showed up with beheadings, crucifixions, rapes, and mass
murders through a huge swath of Iraq
and Syria.
Now the United States
is bombing the Islamic State.

Excerpt: Three weeks before the anniversary, the
administration provided that handpicked set of documents to analysts at the
Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at West Point. ... To some involved in the CTC
study, it was clear that the report was to be part of a broader administration
public relations effort. ... The administration originally approved 19
documents for declassification and release. But shortly after providing them to
the CTC, Lieutenant General Doug Lute, a senior official on the National
Security Council, called to ask that one of the documents be withheld. The
document in question detailed the close relations between al Qaeda and senior
leaders of the Afghan Taliban. Lute explained that the administration had
restarted secret negotiations with the Taliban, and releasing the document
could present unwanted complications. The document was not released.

Excerpt: This story doesn’t note the best thing that Cruz
said: “If you will not stand with Israel, I will not stand with you.”
Then he left the stage — he wasn’t booed off. It is shameful that these Middle
Eastern Christians heckled Cruz for standing with Israel. This is the result of their
long historical identification with Muslims as fellow Arabs.

Excerpt: “Vast numbers of Christians do not believe that if
you leave the Christian religion, you should be killed for it. Vast numbers of
Christians do not treat women as second-class citizens. Vast numbers of
Christians do not believe that if you draw a picture of Jesus Christ you should
get killed for it.”

Excerpt: The leader of one of the biggest Islamist rebel
groups in Syria has been
killed by an explosion in the north-western province of Idlib.
Ahrar al-Sham said Hassan Abboud was among a number of senior figures who died
in the blast at the group's headquarters in the town of Ram Hamdan.

Excerpt: Even as fears grow that ISIS terrorists are
secreted inside America’s
Muslim community, dozens of American Muslim groups have fired off a letter to
President Obama demanding he cut off federal funding for sheriffs and other
local police receiving anti-jihadist training from a former FBI agent.